The Nation of Islam
On October 7, 1897 in Sandersville, Georgia, a woman named Marie Poole gave birth to a boy who she named Elijah. Elijah’s parents were sharecroppers, and this father was a Baptist minister (Black Supremacists, 25). After an eighth grade education, in 1931, Elijah Poole moved to Detroit where, he says, he met “Allah in person”. This was a man named Fard Muhammad—“The first and only man born in Mecca who came to America for the express purpose of teaching the so-called Negro” (Mr. Muhammad Speaks, 103). Elijah studied under Fard Muhammad, after which, he acquired a new title and sense of purpose. Since then, Elijah referred to himself as “Elijah Muhammad, the messenger of Allah, to the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in North America” (Mr. Muhammad Speaks, 100). Elijah Muhammad’s own words state his new purpose very well, “I am doing all I can to make the so-called Negroes see that the white race and its religion, Christianity, are their open enemies” (Mr. Muhammad Speaks, 100). Elijah Muhammad, put quite bluntly, was a psychopath. His ideals parallel those of Adolf Hitler, leader of the Third Reich, the man most directly responsible for the systematic torture and annihilation of millions of innocent people during the Second World War. Elijah Muhammad’s ideals, taught through his cult, the Nation of Islam, are extreme, irrational, racist, and truly evil.
On November 17, 1962, 65 years after the birth of Elijah Muhammad, the New Yorker published an article written by James Baldwin called “Letter from a Region in My Mind. This article is an edited version of one of his now-famous essays, “Down at the Cross”. In this essay, Baldwin describes the encounter he had with Elijah Muhammad. During...
... middle of paper ...
... Muhammad was an evil man. We know he was evil because we have read about his teachings, and about the practices of the Nation of Islam. Baldwin knew he was evil in the same way. And we know that Baldwin knew Muhammad was evil because Baldwin wrote about Muhammad’s hatred in his essay, “Down at the Cross”. But Baldwin demonstrated wisdom by not sharing his views with Muhammad, and he demonstrated humbleness by not being consumed by his views and disagreeing with Muhammad. This helps us, readers of Baldwin, learn just that much more about this complex author.
Works Cited
“Black Supremacists.” Time 10 August 1959: 24-25.
“Black Supremacy Cult in the U.S.” U.S. News & World Report 9 November 1959: 112-114.
Haley, Alex. “Mr. Muhammad Speaks.” Readers Digest March 1960: 100-104.
Hentoff, Nat. “The Black Muslims in America.” The Reporter 27 April 1961: 24-52.
Jackson, E. (2011). Muhammad, Benjamin Chavis (1948- ). Retrieved February 24, 2014, from Black Past: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/muhammad-reverend-benjamin-chavis-1948
Hahn discusses both the well-known struggle against white supremacy and the less examined conflicts within the black community. He tells of the remarkable rise of Southern blacks to local and state power and the white campaign to restore their version of racial order, disenfranchise blacks, and exclude them from politics. Blacks built many political and social structures to pursue their political goals, including organizations such as Union Leagues, the Colored Farmers’ Alliance, chapters of the Republican Party, and emigration organizations. Hahn used this part of the book to successfully recover the importance of black political action shaping their own history.
It is theorized that the phrase “angry Black man” is a social construct created during America’s Colonial period. It was supposedly used to negatively describe an African-American men who spoke out against what they considered to be an incongruous and xenophobic society and more specifically the institution of slavery. The phrase’s essence had been intentionally misconstrued. The three words together were said to have been used by whites as a dismissive tool; a method of sabotaging the validity of an outspoken Black man’s claims of an unjust and oppressive system. This was done in an effort to detract from the legitimacy of the outraged Black man’s cries of injustice. Purportedly, Abolitionist and Black male orators of the time were becoming increasingly persuasive in their arguments and it was feared that their message would garner support. With this in mind, white supremacists took it upon themselves to attach a contemptuous label to those Black men that dared speak up. The word “angry,” was likely chosen because it typically evokes negative perceptions. This would have been a major factor in the promotion of the trivialization process and also the attaching of the conspiracy theorist stigma. Not only was this a manner of dismissing the Black man’s claims but it also helped to dehumanize him as well.
According to Wallace Fard, “Christianity was the white man’s religion.” Do to this thought; Fard founded the Nation Of Islam in the 1930s. It was believed that Christianity was forced upon the African Americans during slavery. Members of the Nation of Islam worship Allah as their God, and
In 1961 James Baldwin met Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam movement at the time. Baldwin’s experience within the Christian Church prior to his meeting with Elijah helped him analyze the Nation of Islam. This also allowed him to draw parallels between the Nation of Islam movement and the Christian Church. How James Baldwin understood the way the Christian Church worked, and a close look at the Nation of Islam, brings to light the credibility of organized religions.
Personal stories and descriptions of major events are narrated throughout James Baldwin’s works as he analyzes the nature of the relationship between white and black America. The marriage of narration and analysis are especially evident in Baldwin’s essay, “Notes of a Native Son.” As Baldwin describes his father and their relationship until his father’s death, he simultaneously comments about the relationship between white and black America. Baldwin compares the events of his experience with concurrent American events to conclude about the nature of his personal relationships and the relationship between races; namely, that one must come to accept the reality of mankind, yet must strive to fight the injustice inherent in mankind’s nature.
Black Power, the seemingly omnipresent term that is ever-so-often referenced when one deals with the topic of Black equality in the U.S. While progress, or at least the illusion of progress, has occurred over the past century, many of the issues that continue to plague the Black (as well as other minority) communities have yet to be truly addressed. The dark cloud of rampant individual racism may have passed from a general perspective, but many sociologists, including Stokely Carmichael; the author of “Black Power: the Politics of Liberation in America”, have and continue to argue that the oppressive hand of “institutional racism” still holds down the Black community from making any true progress.
“A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People... “ PBSOnline, February 21, 2012 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h456.html
Baldwin's mind seems to be saturated with anger towards his father; there is a cluster of gloomy and heartbreaking memories of his father in his mind. Baldwin confesses that "I could see him, sitting at the window, locked up in his terrors; hating and fearing every living soul including his children who had betrayed him" (223). Baldwin's father felt let down by his children, who wanted to be a part of that white world, which had once rejected him. Baldwin had no hope in his relationship with his father. He barely recalls the pleasurable time he spent with his father and points out, "I had forgotten, in the rage of my growing up, how proud my father had been of me when I was little" (234). The cloud of anger in Baldwin's mind scarcely lets him accept the fact that his father was not always the cold and distant person that he perceived him to be. It is as if Baldwin has for...
Ogbar, Jeffrey. Black Power Radical Politics and African American Identity. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 2004, 124.
Baldwin was given the opportunity to become an influential figure in the Nation of Islam movement, he rejected Elijah Muhammed's offer. He was totally against the belief that the movement held. Baldwin says, "love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and we know we cannot live within." (95) Whites cannot love because they fear "to be judged by those who are not white.".
In 2014, Dr. Wallace Best wrote a candid article for the Huffington Post discussing what he deemed as the irrational fear of black bodies. The context surrounding this critique stemmed from the surge of black men dying by white police officers. In the article, Dr. Best provided historical insight into this deeply rooted, unwarranted anxiety that white Americans have used as probable cause to commit violent acts against blacks, as well as systemic control over black men as a means of protection to maintain societal order. With this assertion, Dr. Best offered a critical analysis in understanding the fanatical need to preserve ownership over black movement due to this ubiquitous threat of black skin and the African American male. However, what
In The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Muslim leader and black rights activist, Malcolm X, changes through a few significant events in his life. He went from an optimistic young boy, to a mischievous, law-breaking hustler, to a reformed man who sought to improve the way America viewed race. From the start of junior high, to his pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mecca, Malcolm X experiences three key events that change his life and develop the central idea of systemic oppression in the text.
The Nation of Islam, which Malcolm X was an important member of, is not a religious organization as the name suggests but rather an organization whose goal was to make the lives of African Americans better instead of actually teaching the proper ethics of Islam. One of the main objectives of this organization was Black Nationalism, through which Black leaders can control the areas where there is a majority of African Americans. This cause was greatl...
Samuels, Gertrude. “Two ways: Black Muslim and N.A.A.C.P”.New York Times Magazine, 12 May 1963, pg 87.